Perfect rice!

Rice is a staple in the Filipino diet. I think the first thing a Filipino does when they move to another country is to find out the nearest place they can get rice from. Most of our dishes are best served with rice. It’s no wonder that quite possibly, the first thing one learns to cook is rice.

I’ve been cooking rice since I was 11 years old and I’ve had my fair share of burnt, overcooked and undercooked rice episodes. But for the past 10 or so years, I’ve managed to figure out how to NOT burn rice–without using a rice cooker. This is cooking rice over a hob WITHOUT HAVING TO LIFT THE LID 🙂 and you should be able to produce bowl after bowl of fluffy, white, perfectly steamed rice!

Measure your rice and place it in the pot. Wash the rice twice, each time draining as much water as you can from the pot.

Using the cup that you measured your rice with, use this rice to water ratio: for every 1 measured cup of rice, use 1 1/2 cup of water minus 1/2 cup of water. Confusing? Let me try to make it clearer, for 2 cups of rice use 2 1/2 cups of water (1 1/2 cups water x 2 = 3, then subtract 1/2 a cup = 2 1/2; for 1 1/2 cups of rice use 1 3/4 cups of water, etc.).

Place the pot over a hob on medium high heat until it reaches a rolling boil (the stage when it starts to bubble, at the lid starts making a rattling noise and you start to see steam coming out from under the lid. this is usually 4-5 mins after placing the pot over the hob). Remove from heat for 5 mins.

Turn down the hob to a medium low setting and return the pot to cook for a further 5 mins. Then remove the pot from the heat and allow to rest for 5 mins.